When women in the sailing world are an inspiration
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Happy Women’s Day, female sailors! Women and sailing, a topic that for years, even in Italy, was somewhat taboo and today continues to be a sensitive issue given that only in 2024, for example, did an event such as the America’s Cup open to women. The problem of women’s access to sailing, especially professional sailing, remains. More and more, however, are women sailors who even in the once all-male “top” sailing are emerging and serving as an inspiration with their stories for other women who can follow their path. We have selected a few that have been featured in the sailing news in the recent period. Women who have blazed a trail in the world of sailing and beyond, there is also a “pirate woman.”
Francesca Clapcich
Trieste’s Francesca Clapcich is increasingly a major player in the world of ocean racing, after the announcement of the sports and social project to be developed with 11Th Hour Racing, comes another news. Clapcich and 11Th Hour Racing will also be supported by MerConcept, the company founded by François Gabart that trains professional skippers for the most important ocean races being run, for two seasons of racing on Ocean Fifty trimarans. Clapcich earned these chances after two Olympics, two crewed world tours, one of which she won, the first Italian to succeed. READ MORE.
Catherine Banti
The spotlight has often been shone more on coxswain Ruggero Tita than on her, but Caterina Banti is one of the secrets behind the back-to-back victories of the crew of the reigning Olympic champion Nacra 17. Not surprisingly, the couple was Also reconfirmed for the Paris Olympics. after another exhilarating season in Nacra 17 and after the winning the third world title of their career.Tita will be the helmsman, but really holding the helm of the most successful pair that Italian sailing has had in years, with Ruggero also involved in the America’s Cup, is the Roman sailor.
Cole Brauer
The New York Times reports on it and it has become viral on the web, Cole Brauer is the first American woman to have circumnavigated the planet, aboard a Class 40 at the Global Solo Challenge, setting a new benchmark time with her 130 days. Original in communication, fast at sea with her technique and seamanship, she also subverted the stereotype that oceanic female sailors necessarily have “behemoth” physiques. READ MORE.
Clarisse Cremer
Clarisse Cremer had to struggle to stay in the saddle of an Imoca 60: first dumped by her sponsor because she was pregnant, then accused by anonymous emails of breaking the rules regarding outside help at the last Vendée Globe. Exonerated, she will remain at the helm of her Ocitaine en Provence, coached by Alex Thomson, and hoping to see her at the next Vendée Globe more combative than ever. READ MORE.
Ching Shih. From diamonds nothing is born
There are not only sports figures in women’s sea stories. Few would imagine it, but one of the world’s most famous pirates was a woman.
Ching Shih was born in 1775 in Guangdong Province, and the earliest information about her is about her work as a prostitute in the port city of Guangzhou. Ironic to see how this incredible woman’s story starts under the most desperate conditions, a story of social redemption that is hard to believe. The sea (and fortune), however, did not wait long, and Ching was captured by Cheng (or Zheng) Yi, a pirate in charge of six fleets of pirate ships, who had become so enamored of the woman that he accepted the crazy proposal Ching dared to make to him.
It did not take for Ching and Cheng to become the most feared pirates in the South China Sea, and one of the most successful criminal couples ever, to put Bonnie and Clyde to shame: they began by raiding coastal villages and became the terror of all fishermen. DISCOVER MORE.
Marina Bulgari
Recently deceased, her name is inextricably linked to that of Ydra, the One Tonner that under the command ofAdmiral Tino Straulino won the One Ton Cup, the world championship of 11/12-meter boats of the time, in Porto Cervo in 1973. Historic victory because he beat Ganbare, the revolutionary boat of a then-unknown California boy named Douglas Peterson, to the wire.
Marina Spaccarelli Bulgari is a milestone in sailing history because women owners in the 1970s were white flies. Men dominated the scene and even today it is rare to find women owners and crew members in boating. Recall in recent times Wendy Schmidt who won the Barcolana 2022. DISCOVER MORE.
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